Jury to hear closing arguments in rape trial

GRAHAM – A jury will hear closing arguments Monday in the trial of a Graham man accused of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The alleged victim testified Thursday that Eddie Daniel Berry, 41, of Sarah Williams Avenue, Graham, forced her to have sex multiple times over a two- or three-year period until July 4, 2009. She said she repeatedly reported the alleged incidents to her mother and was punished for doing so — locked in her room with the windows papered over. In 2009, the Alamance County Department of Social Services moved the girl and her sister out of the home.

The girl’s mother, sister and cousin took the stand for the defense Friday. They refuted the alleged victim’s testimony, saying they never saw Berry touch her inappropriately or heard the alleged victim make serious allegations against him.

Berry was charged with indecent liberties with a child in July 2009. He was later indicted on an additional charge of statutory rape. The trial began Thursday morning in the superior courtroom of the Alamance County Historic Courthouse. A jury of nine men, three women and one female alternate was selected to hear the case Wednesday. The state rested its case just after 2 p.m. Friday and the defense put on four witnesses.

The alleged victim testified Thursday that Berry would sneak into her room at night, at least twice a week, and have sex with her in the top bunk of her bed beginning when she was 11. Sometimes while her older sister slept on the bottom bunk, she said. Other times, Berry would have sex with her when no one else was around, she said.

She testified she reported the incidents to teachers, counselors, a school resource officer and her mother in the months before a case was filed against Berry.

She also said that Berry was paying her sister for sex and had threatened to kill her family if she told anyone what he did.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Bob Martin, she denied giving a Graham police detective certain details during a July 2009 interview. Several times, Martin read back a transcript of the recorded interview and the girl, now 17, denied having told detectives those details. She maintained that her basic story of repeated molestation was true.

Alamance County Assistant District Attorney Craig Thompson also called Det. Jim Rowe, with Graham police, and Dr. Adrea Doreen Gist Theodore, who performed a pelvic exam of the girl and her sister in July 2009. No direct signs of physical or sexual abuse were found in that exam.

The girl and her uncle went to Graham police on July 14, 2009, nearly 10 days after the girl last had contact with Berry.

On Friday morning, Karyetta Walker, who administers therapy to the alleged victim, said it took years of counseling to get the girl to talk about what happened. When she opened up, the girl cried and shook as she described the “worst time” Berry allegedly assaulted her.

On cross-examination, Walker said her job wasn’t to determine the truth of a patient’s accusations but to help them “on a journey of healing.” The jury wasn’t allowed to see Walker’s assessment that the girl suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

For the defense, the girl’s mother testified that the alleged victim indicated twice that Berry might have touched her inappropriately.

When she asked her daughter to be specific about how he “messed with her,” she said the girl would play “word games.”

When repeatedly confronted, the woman said her daughter admitted to making up a story against Berry because she knew it would get him in trouble.

“She said ‘I do what I want. I told that lie on Eddie … ,’” the woman testified. “She said, ‘I can say what I want to say. I can get anybody in trouble. I’m young.’ I said: If you lie on anybody you’re going to send them to jail and ruin their life for good. That’s just not right.”

The woman said she made a rule in the house that men and women couldn’t be alone in a bedroom together after her daughter’s first accusation.

She said she never locked her daughter in the room because there wasn’t a lock on the door, and that she’d papered over the windows earlier in the summer to keep the sun out.

The girl’s sister took the stand and testified that Berry had never had sex with her or touched her inappropriately. If Berry had climbed into the top bunk at night, it would have awoken her, she testified. She also said she’d never seen Berry touch her sister inappropriately.

Under cross-examination, she admitted that she originally told investigators that Berry hugged her and made her uncomfortable, that he was lazy and stubborn and couldn’t be trusted.

The sister testified that their mother put paper on the windows because the sun heated up the room and that there was no lock on the door.

The trial resumes at 11 a.m. Monday in the superior courtroom of the Alamance County Criminal Courts building.